Friday

The thought-fox

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest: Something else is alive Beside the clock’s loneliness And this blank page where my fingers move. Through the window I see no star: Something more nearThough deeper within darkness Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow, A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf; Two eyes serve a movement, that nowAnd again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow Between trees, and warily a lame Shadow lags by stump and in hollow Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,A widening deepening greenness, Brilliantly, concentratedly, Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of foxIt enters the dark hole of the head.The window is starless still; the clock ticks,The page is printed. Ted HughesThis beautiful little fox came in to our campsite every day, doing his rounds. Karine got these pictures on the third day.